L'Invitation au voyage

Texts by Gayatri Gopinath, Karoline Hille, Matthew Hyland, Marco Livingstone, Isabelle Moffat, Tobias Peper, Andy St. Louis, Wenny Teo, Marie-Catherine Vogt, Wim Wenders, and Chung Wei-Tzu
Publication Date: 2021

Pages: 132 pages

Binding: Softcover 

Publisher: Esther Schipper

ISBN: 978-3-00-069059-4

Dimensions: 15 x 21 cm

Language: English

At a time when travel in real life has become fraught and the ease, even recklessness, with which we took this liberty for granted has come into question, this exhibition—its title, L’Invitation au voyage is taken from a poem from Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal—invokes the freedom of imaginary travel. The poem, in which the author invites his mistress to travel with him in their imagination, suggests a parallel between Flemish painting, the landscape of the Netherlands, and his lover’s body. Its famous closing lines gave the title to Henri Matisse’s 1904 painting: Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté, Luxe, calme et volupté. 

L’Invitation au voyage spans multiple generations and artistic approaches, inspired, influenced, and expanding on representations of dream and fantasy. Beginning with pioneering avant-gardist Hannah Höch, and established figures such as Paula Rego, Almut Heise, Leiko Ikemura, and Yeesookyung, the exhibition continues into the practices of younger generations with works by Sarah Buckner, Cui Jie, Cordula Ditz, Tala Madani, Isa Melsheimer, Sojourner Truth Parsons, Shahzia Sikander, and Tsai Yi-Ting.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition L’Invitation au voyage at Esther Schipper, Berlin in 2021. Featuring Sarah Buckner, Cui Jie, Cordula Ditz, Almut Heise, Hannah Höch, Leiko Ikemura, Tala Madani, Isa Melsheimer, Sojourner Truth Parsons, Paula Rego, Shahzia Sikander, Tsai Yi-Ting, and Yeesookyung.